The UN nuclear watchdog said work was underway to restore power to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) following the establishment of a rare “ceasefire zone”.
The power plant has been disconnected from the grid for four weeks, the longest power outage since the start of the war.
“After a four-week outage, work to repair damaged off-site power lines to ZNPP (Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant) has begun, following the establishment of a local ceasefire zone to proceed with the work,” International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Grossi said in a social media post on Saturday.
“Restoring off-site power is critical to nuclear safety and security. Both sides have engaged constructively with the IAEA so that the complex remediation plan can proceed,” he added.
Aside from regular exchanges of prisoners, fighting in Ukraine has barely eased during the three-year conflict.
Although neither side has confirmed a ceasefire on the ground, Ukraine’s Energy Ministry said on Saturday that Ukrainian experts were working to restore power lines, marking the 42nd repair operation since Russia’s full-scale invasion.
“The only reason for the unprecedented risk and threat of radiological accidents in Europe is Russia’s military aggression, the occupation of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant and the systematic shelling of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure,” the ministry said in a Telegram post.
In a post on Telegram, the Russian-controlled power plant said its staff were carrying out repair work, adding that the Russian Ministry of Defense was playing a “key role” to “ensure that work is carried out in areas that are under active shelling by the Ukrainian military.”
“Without the security provided by the military, the work of power engineers would not be possible,” the post said.
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant lost its only remaining transmission line connection last month, forcing the plant to operate on emergency diesel generators for more than 20 days, the IAEA reported.
Both sides exchanged accusations over the service outage. Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andriy Sibikha accused Russia of “deliberately” cutting off power to the nuclear power plant to test its reconnection to Russia’s power grid. Russia said the power outage was caused by Ukrainian shelling.
The IAEA said the power outage at the power plant, which has been occupied by Russian forces since the beginning of the war, was the 10th time the plant had lost connection to the grid since the military conflict began.
Russia continues its attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Two weeks ago, a Russian attack on a Ukrainian power substation in the city of Slavtychy caused a power outage that lasted more than three hours at the former Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
President Zelenskiy accused Russia of a “deliberate attack” that involved “more than 20 drones” and said: “There is no way the Russians did not know that the attack on the Slavutychi facility would have such consequences in Chernobyl.”
CNN’s Tim Lister and Gul Tuysuz contributed reporting.
